


Precious Things

by RhetoricFemme



Series: Scenic World AU [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: A bit of Reiner's back story?, Gen, Scenic World AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: It's more than a year into Reiner's life with his new family when he eventually falls ill. Nothing about the day goes as he'd expected when he stays home from school.This story takes place when Reiner is sixteen, so about nine years before the opening of Scenic World.





	Precious Things

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I've had this little story in my mind for months at this point, and I finally got the urge to properly write it. I hope you enjoy it!

No one in the Kirschstein household is surprised when Reiner turns out to be a morning person. He’s one of those people who subscribes to the notion that anything less than half an hour early should be considered late.

At first, Jean is horrified. All those sleepovers where Reiner would be up agonizingly early for anyone, much less a middle schooler, and here Jean had assumed it had more to do with being a nervous houseguest.

Except being with the Kirschsteins had never left Reiner feeling nervous. It was the one place he knew that honestly felt like home.

And then it had become home.

Bertholt had negotiated. Talking Reiner down to showing up fifteen minutes before school started as sufficient. Jean might eventually keel over dead, he’d reasoned, if continually forced to show up to school half an hour before the first bell every single day.

How strange it is then, when Susan counts two, and not three heads at seven-thirty on Monday morning.

Bertholt offers himself as a mediator once again, pulling his mother off to the side that he might tell her that Reiner isn’t likely to be coming down.

“Um.” Bertholt isn’t sure where to start, so he just says it. “When we got sick we kind of got used to taking care of ourselves.”

Susan pulls herself upright upon hearing this, refusing to let her boys catch wind of how this leaves her unabashedly heartbroken.

“He won’t ask for anything, either.” Bertholt continues. “You’ll have to look at him yourself.”

And so she does.

Sending her other two off to school with obligatory a.m. affection, Susan eyes the staircase that leads to both private and guest bedrooms. To the once unfinished hallway where she and Jakob had asked Bertholt and Reiner if they’d please become official members of their family.

Susan hopes to die in this house one day. White-haired and tired, sneaking off in her sleep not of ailment, but after decades of challenges met and just being there when a warm presence had been needed most. Maybe even a few quiet adventures along the way.

But for now, Susan’s a long way off from going gentle into that good night. Jogging up the stairs, she pads quietly down the hall until she’s standing in front of Reiner’s closed bedroom door.

The house is silent as they’re the only two left home, and the carefully turned doorknob seems obscenely loud because of it.

Inside Reiner’s room, Venetian blinds that are typically drawn up with the sun are now tightly closed. Just enough light trickles in from the hallway for Susan to notice the boy laying on his stomach, motionless beneath several blankets in his bed.

Moving closer, she sees that this had been nothing more than falsely perceived stillness, and her heart goes out to him. Shivering but feverish, the room is apparently not dark enough, as Reiner had found the volition to neatly fold a t-shirt and drape it over his eyes. Having tucked himself in to the best of his ability, Reiner gasps when a cool hand is placed across his forehead.

“Hey Mister Man.”

He does what he can to control his trembling. Clears his throat when he apologizes repeatedly.

“I think I need to stay home today.” Reiner’s tone insinuates independence, and it’s clear he doesn’t expect Susan or anyone else to miss work or school for him.

Looking him over, Susan recalls everything Bertholt had said. Considers how in the three years she’s known him, how self-sufficient this particular child of sixteen has always been.

A quick glance around the room at discarded tissues, and a strategically placed waste basket, and she knows he didn’t just wake up like this. She frowns to think that Reiner must have been quietly hurting since the middle of the night.

Susan wants to baby him, just as she would Jean. The same as she’s almost certain she’d get away with treating Bertholt. With Reiner, however, she fights off the urge to strip away his carefully crafted sense of autonomy and do it all for him.

That’s just not Reiner. Not who this boy—her boy—is, and Susan knows it.

And so she meets him halfway.

“If you need to stay in here, I understand.” She whispers, kneeling beside the bed, fingers raking back his sweat-damp hair. “But I would prefer it if you came downstairs. At least for a little while.”

Neither of them says much else, though Reiner offers a small nod in understanding.

Satisfied, Susan leaves a small kiss to the side of his head, and shuts the door quietly behind her.

She isn’t made to wait long. Reiner takes just long enough time for her to gather various comfort items and recline on the end of the couch.

Reiner grips the bannister carefully, a blanket and pillow tucked beneath one arm, only to find the living room has gone dim. The near floor-to-ceiling windows have been drawn entirely closed for what has to be only the second or third time in the year-and-half they’ve lived here.

Susan looks at him from where he stands on the landing, giving him an assuring smile when she beckons him near. Shuffling closer, Reiner’s cheeks are still flushed while the rest of him remains too pale. Susan’s improved upon the setup he’d established in his bedroom; an arsenal of bottled water and tissue boxes, and two waste baskets at their disposal. A tablet and her phone rest on the arm of the couch, and she pats the unoccupied space beside her.

“You don’t have to stay here.” It’s the first time Reiner’s actually said it, though it feels like he’s repeating himself. “Won’t work miss you?”

“Sweetie.” She says confidently. “If work wants me, they know where to find me. Come lay down.”

She’s taking a chance now. Assuming Reiner will oblige her care, though still not entirely certain of what he’ll decide to do. He surprises both of them when after a heavy sigh, his pillow lands square in Susan’s lap. It’s all one swift movement from there, from his blanket gone airborne to the way it lands over top of him as he stretches the length of the couch, his head in Susan’s lap.

In actuality, Reiner’s blanket is a quilt. One of two Jakob’s mother had started on two years ago; sewing every square herself before monogramming a set of initials onto each finished product. She’d managed to finish them just in time for Reiner and Bertholt’s first Christmas with the family. One of the precious few they’d have time to spend with her.

Reiner says nothing when he draws the quilt up past his eyes. Accepting the hand rubbing slow circles into his back, he searches himself for the balance between not coming off as needy while trying to keep so very near.

It works for a little while. Long enough for Susan to shoot off a few work e-mails before delving into some magazine or another. Long enough for her to assume Reiner had nodded off where he lay.

Now Reiner hardly moves, his face sufficiently hidden behind the white and navy flannel squares that existed solely for him. None of it prevents Susan from recognizing what is really going on, here.

 _Silent sobs_ is a phrase Susan has only ever come across in the pages of a book. She’s never actually witnessed it, much less put much stock into the concept. Jean had most certainly never been a quiet cryer, and she’s never really had the opportunity to hear it from anyone else.

She gets the full impact of it right now.

It’s slow to start. What she’d first assumed to be the labored breathing of fevered sleep begins to falter, and before long Reiner has all of Susan’s attention. He’s yet to make a single sound when she finally pulls the quilt back, revealing soaked lashes and a tear-stained pillow. Red-rimmed, azure eyes practically glow when they look up to her, and she makes no effort to stop Reiner when he reburies his face where she can’t see.

Her arm goes around his shoulders, the soothing shush of her voice nothing against the muffled apologies now uttered into the damp pillow. Reiner’s not easy to understand like this, though Susan still tries. While Reiner sobs around myriad questions and apologies, there are some words Susan easily comprehends.

It feels like that first night all over again. The one where two young boys had come for a long weekend, only to be asked if they would stay forever. It’s that same feeling all over again when she hears him sigh with exhaustion, her ears and heart wrapping around the way Reiner says _Mom, I love you._


End file.
